After these six days he was brought before a prosecutor in front of whom Mr. Yoldaș waived his right to a lawyer and confessed to being part of that illegal organization and even participating in armed attacks with it. He confessed to a total of 10 offences. Later that day when he was brought before a judge Mr. Yoldaș repeated his waiver of the right to a lawyer and his confession. He was then placed in detention.

During the subsequent court proceedings he hired a lawyer and reiterated his previous confessions. However, in a later hearing he denied having taken part in any attacks and claimed to have been coerced into confessing. He further claimed that he was denied access to a lawyer. Nonetheless he was found guilty of having committed four of the offences he initially confessed to. The other six offences were excluded from the case file because of lack of evidence.

The ECHR first found that there is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Yoldaș was mistreated while in police custody and found this claim to be manifestly ill-founded.

With respect to the initial 6 days detention, the ECHR stated that it was not necessary to detain Mr. Yoldaș for 6 days before bringing him before a judge. Consequently the ECHR found a violation of article 5(3).

The ECHR next looked at whether the right to access a lawyer was breached. It affirmed the principles in Salduz v Turkey and noted that under the Turkish legislation, Mr. Yoldaș had the right to be assisted by counsel. The ECHR further pointed out that a person can waive his/her rights but that this waiver needs to be unequivocal and accompanied by minimum safeguards. Then the ECHR found that the applicant was informed, during police detention, of his right to access a lawyer and he waived this right in writing. Mr. Yoldaș also waived this right when brought before a prosecutor and a judge but freely exercised it during the court proceedings. Also, the national courts excluded from the case file six of the offences to which Mr. Yoldaș initially confessed because they were not supported by any other evidence besides those confessions. These considerations lead the ECHR to find, by a majority of four to three, that there has been no violation of articles 6 (1) and (3) (c).

The dissenting minority in this case questioned whether the waiver of the right to access a lawyer was free and real in this case. It said that Mr. Yoldaș was facing very serious charges and this should have led to analyzing the waiver with greater scrutiny. It went on to say that any procedural decision an accused may take without having consulted a lawyer first, cannot be considered free and informed. It added that during police custody and remand procedural fairness requires that the accused be assisted by a lawyer.